The subject matter of this patent application relates to modeling software systems, and more particularly to modeling the composition and interaction of components in a software system including user interfaces.
Enterprises are typically modifying and adapting enterprise software systems with increasing frequency. But enterprise software systems are generally large and complex. Such systems can require many different components, distributed across many different hardware platforms, possibly in several different geographical locations. Typical software systems may not be able to reduce this complexity for end users. In order to change the design, configuration and implement new parts of an enterprise software system, one is required to understand details of the system at varying levels, depending on his or her role in designing, managing or implementing the system.
For example, some individuals may grasp how a given business scenario works from a business person's perspective, but do not necessarily understand how to model a software architecture formally to realize the business scenario. Whereas others may have knowledge of a software model but no know how to adapt the model to a business scenario. Given a business scenario that needs to be realized, composite application modeling helps users to understand and adapt existing software systems. This includes modeling components with and without a user interface. It may be that only the user interface needs to be adjusted, not the underlying software components.